Dark and Light is here! The promising online role-playing game, reminiscent of Conan Exiles and ARK. We played the early access version.
Survival is currently in vogue, and it seems like a lot of development studios want a piece of this pie. So do the developers of Dark and Light.
A little history lesson: Dark and Light was first released in 2006, representing a fairly classic MMORPG at the time, and was not well received by fans. The servers were taken offline in 2008. Snail Games purchased the license and developed a new online game using the well-known name. The classic MMO gameplay has been replaced by a survival game concept and is strongly reminiscent of ARK Survival Evolved and Conan Exiles.
Technically Unrefined
At the start of early access, there was a lot of criticism – and rightly so. The first version of the MMORPG was technically unrefined.
This was noticeable right from the character creation. Graphics glitches resulted in extremely long arms, the colors were off, and some textures were missing. Nevertheless, I managed to create a human who materialized in a city. In front of him stood a merchant without a lower body.
Flickering textures and vegetation that constantly disappeared and suddenly reappeared did not contribute to a good first impression. The technology has since been improved somewhat, but it still isn’t top-notch.
The performance was, to put it mildly, subpar. Even with medium settings, the fps count didn’t go above 30, and that on a PC with 32 GB of RAM and a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. The loading times, until the game finally starts, were – and still are – extremely long. Some players reported about 20 minutes in the Steam forum. It wasn’t quite that long for me, thanks to an M.2 SSD, but still long enough for me to grab a coffee.
I started on one of the public servers, which strangely only consisted of PvP servers at the beginning. PvE worlds were added later. Despite a decent ping of under 100, I struggled with drops, lag, and was constantly killed, even though I couldn’t even tell by whom or what. So I amusingly switched to single-player mode. Here there were no lags, but the performance was still not impressive.
Resource Gathering, Crafting, Combat – We Already Know This
So I followed the tutorial, which turned out to be not so easy. The friendly tutorial lady recited her lines in a confusing order. For example, she introduced herself only after the fifth quest and acted as if we were seeing each other for the first time.
The tutorial descriptions didn’t really help in figuring out what to do, as they contained cryptic placeholder texts. Nevertheless, I managed to gather the first raw materials with my bare hands, making the bushes flow wildly. Thus, I harvested berries, wood, fiber, and stones.
I then crafted my first axe to gather resources more effectively and defend against monster attacks. All of this strongly resembles ARK or Conan Exiles.
Whenever you complete a tutorial, a new recipe becomes available, promising new items or spells. Afterwards, you go out to gather these raw materials and craft the item. In between, you eat berries or apples to combat hunger and thirst.
Anyone can cast spells in Dark and Light. You craft a staff which you can then imbue with a spell. For example, to gather resources faster or to hurl fireballs. This consumes spell energy, which you replenish by eating flower petals. While I initially only wandered around in tattered pants and a light shirt, I was later able to craft a leather armor. By the way, resources or items that you no longer need can be sold in town.
An Aesthetically Pleasing Group Game
Dark and Light is played from a third-person perspective, and there is no option to switch to first-person view. The game visually presents itself as mixed. Many areas, like forests or cities, look impressive from afar. But up close, flickering vegetation and unimpressive lighting effects stand out. Even during sunrise or sunset, there is no truly impressive atmosphere.
The further you venture inland, the more dangerous it becomes. On the one hand, there are dark creatures lurking everywhere that will knock you out with one hit at the beginning. You should level up well first, learn many skills such as melee combat or defense, and particularly pay attention to good equipment. On the other hand, it is dangerous in the wilderness if you are on a PvP server. Because other players will attack you unexpectedly if you are not in the protection of a city and NPC guards cannot come to your aid.
A level-up grants you free points to allocate to attributes. Skills increase automatically through use. But there are still issues here as you never know how a skill increases. Because there are still placeholder texts present – just like with the description of items.
Interestingly, taming monsters is possible. With the right spell, you can acquire pets and mounts. You can even tame dragons, although I haven’t managed to do that yet. Exploring the vast world is certainly fun with the right people, and being in a group significantly increases your chances of survival. However, the number of players per server is limited to 100, which is why you don’t run into other players that often.
Andreas says:
Dark and Light has a long road ahead. Technically, it is far from polished. In terms of gameplay, fans of ARK or Conan Exiles get familiar fare. There has been a lot of criticism about Dark and Light, yet the player numbers on Steamcharts show that the RPG is apparently quite well received. My impression is that it is certainly suitable as a survival game. It is fun, and those who do not expect something drastically different from ARK or Conan Exiles can have a good time in the fantasy world.
With early access games, it’s hard to predict where the journey will go and how the game will develop. Perhaps Dark and Light will soon make it onto our list:
The 9 best multiplayer survival games on the market – in 2017
